Despair with Weight

[mbeaumont]

Hi All,

This is my first post so please bear with me. So I am Male aged 47 with the following body definitions :-

Weight 96kg (213 Lbs / 15.11 Stone

Body Fat is 31.8% (Obese)

BMI is 30.2 (Obese)

Visceral Belly Fat is 14.5 (High)

My thyroid readings are as follows :-

17-Aug-16 TSH=0.90 / Free T4=11.5

23-Apr-14 TSH=1.28 / Free T4=14.5

31-Jul-13 TSH=0.58 / Free T4=10.7

I goto the Gym every day and swim for 1 hour, burning 1000 calories, I eat roughly 1800 per day and my BMR is about 1800

I cannot loose any weight. Over the year I have managed to lose 2kg, from 98 to 96kg and cannot understand with the rate of exercise and healthy eating why my body is the way it is and it's depressing. I feel tried, irritable have hear palpitations and my GP is disinterested.

I've been looking around and from the Thyroid readings, does this look on the face of it that I may have an overactive thyroid? I am confused as weight gain is associated with an under active Thyroid and totally loosing the will.

I have thought about paying for private tests, but they want £180 which I cannot afford. Pretty desperate. Whats peoples thoughts on this?

Thanks in advance

Mik

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

mbeaumont I assume those are GP tests. Reference ranges would be helpful, it will tell us whether your FT4 is under range or very close to the bottom of the range which I suspect it is. To have an over active thyroid your FT4 (and FT3) would have to be over range. Very low or under range indicate under active.

A low TSH and low FT4 can indicate secondary hypothyroidism where the problem lies not with the thyroid gland but with the pituitary or hypothalamus. See:

btf-thyroid.org/information...

And scroll down to "How can blood tests be used to diagnose thyroid disorders?" where you will see:

"A low TSH with a low FT4 may be a result of a failure of the pituitary gland (secondary hypothyroidism caused by hypopituitarism) or a response to a significant non-thyroid illness"

Also thyroid.org/thyroid-functio...

What private tests do you want? Full thyroid tests plus all important vitamins and minerals can be tested for £99 with Blue Horizon Thyroid Plus Eleven and you can do it at home with a fingerprick test

bluehorizonmedicals.co.uk/T...

[mbeaumont in reply to SeasideSusie]

Hi thanks,

Those results are from my GP when testing my Vis-D which is low. The reference ranges are as follows :-

TSH ( 0.3 - 4.2)

Free T4 - (9 - 23)

Does that help?

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to mbeaumont]

Yes . So your August results show you are close to the bottom of range for FT4 which, along with low TSH may indicate secondary hypothyroidism. I have given you a couple of links (there will be more if you Google). The British Thyroid Foundation one should hold some weight with your GP so I would go along with the information and ask him to consider secondary hypothyroidism and, if necessary, refer you to an endocrinologist. Try to see one who specialises in thyroid disease rather than diabetes. You can email [e-mail] for a list of thyroid friendly endos, see which are in your area and ask for feedback from members. That way you hopefully won't be wasting your time on an endo who knows little about thyroid (and there are very many of them).

As for Vit D, what was the result and have you been prescribed D3? Most prescriptions are too low a dose to be helpful. Plus important co-factors are needed when taking D3 which doctors never tell us about, mainly because they don't study nutrition so don't know about them.

vitamindcouncil.org/about-v...

K2-MK7 is very important because Vit D aids absorption of calcium from food and K2 directs the calcium to bones and teeth where it is needed rather than arteries and soft tissues where it can get deposited and cause problems.

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Forgot to say, as far as your weight goes you, unless your thyroid is optimally medicated (and I think you need a diagnosis and treatment) then you won't lose weight however hard you try.

[Ruthi]

Your free T4 is low in range, but your TSH suggests that your FT3 is probably better than that. You are certainly not overactive.

I would strongly suspect the kind of diet you are following. Modern 'healthy' low fat high carb diets tend to be counter productive.

Read The Obesity Code by Jason Fung or his Blog intensivedietarymanagement.com or watch his videos, The Aetiology of Obesity series on Youtube.

It is highly likely, at your weight, that you are insulin resistant, and that makes weightloss difficult.